Heated Huts To 'Rats With Radiators' Among Winter Dining Ideas

CHICAGO — Yurts, igloos and "fire tables" were among the more than 600 ideas folks pitched as part of the city's Winter Design Challenge aimed at figuring out how to keep restaurants operating al fresco when it's, eh, freezing.

City officials partnered with BMO Harris Bank and the Illinois Restaurant Association to offer $5,000 prizes for the most creative ways to keep restaurants serving amid the coronavirus crisis during cold months.

So far, iZ Design & Planning's "Slide and Dine" proposal has received the most online love for its dining huts with heated booth seating, overhead heating, teepee-style ventilation system, UV disinfectant lighting, transparent walls and sliding doors.

And then there was the most ridiculous pitch of the bunch: "Rats with Radiators," which was summed up in a four-word pitch by Niki Hughes: "Put radiators on rats."

The proposal includes COVID-19 precautions: "All rats will be temperature checked before being issues their radiator at the beginning of each shift."

It also includes promised to have an equity component. "Rats from every background and from every part of the city will be utilized," according to the pitch by a West Town neighborhood resident and "lifelong Chicagoan with a yard and an alley with too many rats."

Anyway, contest winners will be announced in October.

To check out all 643 proposals for yourself, click here.